Through the Barricades
by sf
Summary: Reno, Rufus. A Turk's philosophy on failure, and his President's response. Part I is set after Shinra 26 impacts with Meteor, while Part II is set postMeteor and preAdvent Children. Yaoi.
1. I: As Our Hearts Go To Their Graves

**Through the Barricades**

**Rating: **Hard-R (M)

**Warnings**: M/M

**Pairings: **Reno/Rufus, Rude/Reno

Summary: Reno, Rufus, and a Turk's philosophy on failure. Part I is set after Shinra 26 impacts with Meteor, while Part II is set post-Meteor and pre-Advent Children. Yaoi.

Spoiler warning: AC-spoilers and in-game spoilers.

* * *

**I: As our hearts go to their graves**

"_Get me a team. I want Shinra 26 repaired."_

"_We've run the simulations as you ordered, sir. Even if we packed Shinra 26 from top to bottom with C4 explosives, it wouldn't be able to eliminate Meteor…"_

"_Divert it, at least?"_

"_It's not an asteroid per se, sir. It's a directed spell. We could possibly blow off about a third of the surface, but that might have adverse consequences of its own as the debris hits…"_

"_The alternative will be having all of Meteor plunging into the surface of the Planet, Lieutenant."_

"_Sir!_ _We have a Weapon surfacing near Junon Harbor!"_

"_Damn. You, get Shinra 26 repaired. I'll find a solution."_

"_Yes sir."_

* * *

The world was always red, these days. The burning fury of Meteor, that angry eye in the sky staring at them with a dead man's wrath. The red as hellfires bloomed when the heavy artillery flung everything they had at the approaching Weapons. The red as emergency lights went off at Weapon's counterattack and Elena was dragging him to the helicopter _the shield is breached we have to evacuate, sir!_

The red of blood seeping from his knuckles as he drove a fist into the wall when the operator signaled, over and over again, "Shinra 26 has impacted with Meteor. There have been no discernible effects."

He dug his gloves out of his pocket, pulling them over the wounds. No one ever saw Rufus Shinra bleed or cry.

"Sorry chief, shouldn't have let them get away with the sub…"

The world was the red of Reno's hair, as the Turk stood before his desk, looking slightly discomforted.

The world was the red haze of anger before his eyes as his strained temper snapped.

"How do you deal with failure?" he heard himself biting out, each word directed not so much at the one in front of him as himself. "How do you face the next day knowing that you've _incontrovertibly screwed up_ and that, not far in the distant future, there may not _be_ a next day?"

The sky will fall, and blood will rain from the Heavens.

He wasn't aware that he had buried his face in his hands until he opened his eyes to black.

"Chief… Rufus…"

He lashed out at the hand that tentatively brushed his shoulder. "Don't _touch_ me." He had to work. He had to come up with another solution. He had to find a way to stop the Weapons. He had to…

_Shinra 26 has failed, and all our hopes with it._

All the people he had to face. _His_ people. The ones who looked to _him_ to save them from the crises from land, sea, sky.

And to think that once, he had thought to rule them with fear.

_The city you inherited isn't just metal and stone…_

"Give me time," he was whispering. "Give me a chance to turn the clock back and undo it all…"

He'd remove the plate. He'd find something better than mako. He'd rebuild Midgar upon the high hills, under the clear blue sky.

But there wasn't time. He had failed, and the taste of it was bitter acid in his mouth, twisting through his stomach.

There was the quiet hiss of shifting fabric, someone fidgeting nervously in front of him. He looked up, marshalling a glare. "What are you still here for?"

"You didn't ask me to leave," Reno said. "Plus, you asked me a question."

He growled, slumping back in his chair. "You're dismissed."

"Don't think about it," the Turk said instead.

"What?"

"Don't think about failing." Reno had evidently overcome his hesitation, and now he sauntered forward, shoving files aside to settle on the edge of the desk. "One thing you learn in the slums? You don't even _think_ about failing. Or dying. You don't have time to be scared."

Rufus warred between curiosity and the desire to order the Turk out. Curiosity won; and he steepled his fingers under his chin, elbows propped on the chair's armrests, and regarded that clash of burning fire over black and white before him.

"Don't think ahead, yo. There's no point. You gotta live in the present."

"My _job_ is about thinking ahead."

"Yeah well, but asking rhetorical questions about whether you're going to make it or not, dwelling on failures after they've gone and past… sorry, Chief. They ain't gonna help you in any way. Tseng would tell us to shut up and just follow orders. But since you're the Chief, I suppose you just have to shut up and figure out what orders to give."

It turned out that what the Turk had to say wasn't as new or interesting as he'd hoped it would be. It was something that Tseng would have said, perhaps, or Reeve, although Jenova knew that Reeve took his own failures harshly too. It was something he could have figured out himself.

His arms came down, fingers reaching for the keyboard. "Thank you. And I do believe I asked you to leave." He turned his eyes on the report, a frown growing on his face. The Huge Materia had been stolen, Rude's report said. Shinra 26 had been nothing but an empty shell.

Those Avalanche _bastards_.

Something choked up inside of him, cutting from heart to throat like a knife. Something crunched in his right hand, splinters driving through his gloves and lacerating his fingers. Pain blossomed, white hot, but it was merely a dull throb compared to the sheer force of despair and fury that was strangling him.

"Whoa, _Chief!_"

Reno's hand was on his wrist then, locking it and carefully prying the ruined mouse from his grasp. "You sure get violent when you're pissed…"

"I asked you to _leave_," he growled.

"Yeah. So since I decided I didn't have any additional orders, I decided to come right back. And since I was coming right back, I decided it was easier not to step out in the first place." Reno looked up at him from where he was still perched on the desk, bright green eyes contemplative. He tilted his head. "You need to relax."

Anger turned his usual cultured tone harsh. "I'm the fucking President of a world with Armageddon hanging over its head. I don't have _time_ to relax."

"Oh yeah?" Reno's intent stare was locked on his face. "You're no President."

Anger turned ice-cold and stilled, settling on his shoulders like a cloak. "What did you say?"

"You're no President," Reno continued, and there was something quite unreadable in that gaze now. "You're a little kid who's taken over the job you've been training all your short life to fulfill. And now it's fallen on your lap way early. You're not ready for it. You get whacked with a crisis. Two. You're as scared as fuck." A finger snapped out, jabbing at his chest, just over the heart. "This part of you doesn't think it's the President. Not yet, at any rate."

"You—"

"You know how I know," the Turk was asking, pressing in so close that Rufus could feel the breath that punctuated every sentence. "You're not out there on the bleeding edge. You're not fighting back with everything you've got. You're looking over your shoulder waiting for your resident miracle to appear and save all our asses."

Years of careful diplomatic training flew out of the window in an instant. The calm demeanor shattered under those accusations, those words that hit just a bit too close to home. "I've been fighting the damn Weapons for a week now!" he snarled.

"And this is the first time you've actually had to fight for your life, isn't it?" He saw the Turk's eyes light, as the unreadable expression morphed into a smirk. And the remaining distance between them had abruptly vanished, and there were lips on his, Reno's teeth coming down hard on his lower lip and his tongue ruthlessly shoving its way into his mouth.

He bit down, and there was a hiss of breath before one of the Turk's hands was clutching at the back of his neck, fingers burying painfully into the nerves there, and the other hand was on his chest and Reno was shoving him backwards, kissing him with enough force to bruise.

"You—" he snarled around Reno's mouth, and Reno broke away, breathing harshly.

"Tell you what happened when I first signed up," Reno said, his voice a low, throaty rumble that Rufus had never heard from him before. "Tell you what happened when I first signed up. 'I'm a Turk,' I told myself. Part of the elite. Henceforth, Reno-sama will kick ass. Not more being kicked around."

He leaned in, and his breath was warm on Rufus' cheek, his tongue leaving a wet trail as it circled his ear lobe. "You know what? On my first mission, I got my ass _kicked so hard_ that I was in medical for a week. That's _Shinra_ medical, mind you. With shitloads of materia and the most advanced medical equipment known to man."

Rufus was frozen, caught by the soft words being whispered into his ear.

"And I'll tell you what Veld told me, when he hauled my ass up on the carpet and kicked it for the second time running.

"He told me: You little dipshit. You're not a Turk. You're not a Turk because you're too busy prancing around in your brand spanking new suit saying: "Lookatme! I'm a Turk! I'm a Turk! Shoot me!" You want to be a Turk? You have to _act_ like one. Stop thinking. The title doesn't rely on its reputation to get the job done. It _makes_ its reputation. No one's going to _bow down_ just because you're a Turk, until you actually pick your scrawny ass off the floor and actually back that name up with some firepower. Got it?"

Rufus snapped into action then, jerking away from Reno's ministrations and one hand coming up to lock around Reno's wrist. "So I have to be more aggressive, is that it?"

"You miss the point, kiddo." With almost casual grace, Reno broke his grip, leaving him with a hand stinging and going rapidly numb. Another move and Rufus found himself pinned against the black cushions of his chair, arms locked above his head, blood mapping a path down from his lacerated right palm

"You made one helluva Vice President because you weren't thinking: I'm the Vice President. The Vice Prez has gotta to be just so," Reno said. "Hell, no. You were busy running undercover operations, keeping the company alive, and don't deny it – trying to find the quickest, neatest way to off the old man." Something flashed across his face. Some sort of anger, something that was quite definitely lust. Reno's hand trailed down his front, unbuttoning his suit jacket as it went, brushing aside layers of fabric.

"You're the Prez. You don't need to think about it. You don't need to wonder what _he_ would have done in your shoes. You don't need to sulk about screwing up. You just gotta keep going. Roll with the punches. Shinra 26 fucked up, thanks to that Avalanche bunch that nipped off with the Huge Materia… well, stop thinking about it and start coming up with a new plan."

And suddenly Reno's palm was hovering the button of his pants, warmth pooling against his abdomen.

"You're the brains. We're just the brawn, you know."

Harsh breathing in his ears that had to be his own, because Reno seemed to be holding his breath, frozen to stillness as if the victim of a Stop spell. Red, so much of it, spilling in through the windows as the sun headed towards the horizon; spilling backwards from Reno's head, and he had the sudden urge to tear away the restraining rubber band, to see those flames spill free.

He snarled, fighting against Reno's grip, even as he felt the button fall away and damnit, he _wasn't_ arching up into Reno's hand, he _wasn't—_

--"People won't stop screwing with you… and screwing you… just cos you're the Prez. You gotta stop them from screwing with you because you're Rufus Shinra." And Reno leaned in to capture his lips.

Clothes went in a confusion after that. His jacket was the first casualty, then he'd somehow broken free of Reno's grasp, and fingers shoving _his_ jacket off, cursing as it snagged on slender shoulders. Reno's smirk as Rufus found himself shoved up against his own desk, both of them moving with an urgency that bespoke of the desperation of those who know their time is almost up. He marked Reno, teeth and nails leaving red streaks down neck and back, even as Reno pounded into him, no time or thought for preparations, for taking it slowly, riding on the knife edge of pain and pleasure.

The last thing he saw before he tumbled over that edge was Meteor, burning angrily against the evening sky.

* * *

"I could fire you for that," he gasped out, later, as Reno flopped bonelessly into the chair – into _his_ chair.

"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" Reno said, rummaging through his discarded jacket for a cigarette.

"You…" he allowed his eyes to drift close for a moment, and hung in the darkness, listening to the pounding of his heart. It was alive. _He_ was alive. Staring death in the eye was a long way away from dead. His eyes snapped open.

"Get the chopper ready," he said, standing and reaching for his clothes.

Reno raised an eyebrow. "Whatcha thinking of doing?"

"Dismantle the Junon cannon. We're going to fall back to Midgar." He tugged the turtleneck over his head, turning to stare out of the tall glass windows. "And then we're going to give them Hell."

Reno's grin was acknowledgement enough.


	2. II: Everything to go

**FF7-Post Game Pre AC Through the Barricades**

**Rating: **Hard-R (M)

**Warnings**: M/M

**II: Everything to go**

* * *

The bar was nice and dark.

And full of alcohol.

And _intact_, which definitely made it an improvement over the rest of the city, smoldering in the aftermath of Meteor.

He savored the burn as the drink went down. Shitty cheap vodka that smelt like rocket fuel, unmixed, innocuously transparent, just like water…

He knew he was drunk when he thought like that.

_Rufus would have turned his nose up at it_.

He blinked at the insidious little voice, then mentally snarled at it to shut up. Where had he been? Oh yes. Water. Perfectly clear. Without even the ice cubes to mar it. He held the glass up to the light, admiring.

_Rufus would have ordered it with a shot of crème de cacao_…

"Shit," he cursed into the glass, knocking the rest of it back in a single mouthful. The fumes hit the back of his throat, sending him coughing. If only they would hit his brain as easily.

He was running out of money. Going home was the best idea at this point, except that going home meant facing Rude. And facing Rude in these post Meteor days had been just _great_, all the way until he'd called out the wrong name in the middle of the night.

They'd shared an embarrassed chuckle about it later, some spur of the moment quip about Shinra having way too many people whose names started with R.

'_sides, he's dead._

_I'm sorry._

_Don't be, buddy. Wasn't our fault. Nothing we could do. Gotta just roll with the punches, you know. Now do that to me again._

And later, when they'd fallen back on the sheets, Reno had stared into the dark and wondered what the hell he was going to do with his life.

_It's come to this. This is the end of Shinra._

"Why," he asked his glass, "Does the Company depend so much those dudes it's named after?"

"Because we're the brains," the glass answered back.

Given how drunk he knew he had to be, he wasn't really surprised when a ghost materialized to his right and dropped into the vacant bar seat. All white, just like the stories, except that he'd acquired a few more layers of black in death, and it was a button down, not a turtleneck, and he'd lost the long white coat…

"Did you know that even Rude's starting to get tired of your attitude?" the ghost asked.

He grinned humorlessly. "I bet it's because of last night."

"Actually, it's about you sulking around, moping about your failure to stop Weapon, acting like the world's generally over..." the ghost nodded at the bartender, ordering something.

Reno shrugged absently, and called for a top up. "See, it all boils down to that Huge Materia. If we'd nuked Meteor, he'd still have been there in Junon. If he'd still been there in Junon…"

The ghost wasn't listening. The ghost was running a finger around the rim of the glass that the bartender brought – something crystal clear and innocuously transparent – "You know, someone once told me not to speculate on past failures. Not in those words, of course. He had a rather more endearing manner of speech that I can't quite replicate."

_Rather more endearing…_ Reno was dimly aware that his jaw had fallen open. If this was an alcohol induced hallucination, it was a damned good one. It certainly had that snide, cultured, I'm-so-damned-superior-to-you-and-don't-you-know-it tone down pat.

"I," Reno declared to the world, "am so drunk."

The ghost was standing in front of him now, all familiar blue eyes and gold hair a tad shorter than he had remembered it. The glass – one of those wide ones on a ridiculously thin stem – cradled delicately between thin fingers. Fingers that had been all too adept at removing buttons, amongst … other things.

_And then Weapon had blown everything to hell._

"Reno, Reno," the ghost was saying. "Less retard and more focus, please." Fingers trailed across his face, lighting briefly on the mark below an eye.

"You're dead," Reno snarled, abruptly angry. "You're so fucking dead that you should _stay_ dead. I don't appreciate being bloody haunted when all I wanna do is get fuckin' trashed!"

The gentle caress turned into an iron grip as fingers caught and held his chin. The ghost's stare was hard, cold as ice, and unwavering.

"Lemme the fuck go…"

"So that's the problem," Rufus said. "You think I'm dead. Let me show you otherwise."

* * *

The wall was hard and cold against his back as he slammed backwards against it, warm hands on his shoulders under his jacket holding him firmly against it. Somewhere, somehow, they'd ended up outside the bar, and if this was a ghost or a hallucination, then it was a _damned good one_, because its tongue was currently doing that _swipe_ thing around his own. It tasted of vanilla vodka and crème de cacao as well, that snotty as hell drink that Rufus liked entirely too much…

"You always had a sweet tooth," Reno mumbled.

"Liar," Rufus said, eyes glittering in the glow of the distant street lamp. "You're the farthest thing from sweet."

His belt slithered away, falling to the floor and curling around his feet. Fingers made short work of the button, then the zipper, then found his length, cradling and running across it in a way that only one person ever knew how to do…

Electricity sparked up his spine and across his vision, and the ghost was _smirking_, damnit, and… "I never figured you for the dark alley kind…"

"Indeed," Rufus said. "Poor ambience." The fingers stilled as he adopted a slightly thoughtful look.

"Damnit, brat. You got this far, don't stop _now_," Reno growled, crushing golden strands of hair in his hands as he dragged Rufus' lips to meet his own. Warmth, mm, so much better than the sharp cold of the wind cutting past them, his skin lighting afire—

--a nip, teeth closing on his questing tongue in a silent gesture of warning. His grip slipped, the kiss broke, and Rufus was eying him calmly from a fuzzy one foot away. "Poor ambience, I said. Let's find some place better."

"You have _got_ to be kidding." His dick was hanging out of his pants, his shirt half undone and his jacket half streaked with mold and dust from making its acquaintance with the wall…

"So impatient," Rufus teased, as he bent to retrieve the belt. Looping it through Reno's shirt collar, he tugged lightly. "Heel."

* * *

They probably traumatized the cab driver, with his growling attempts to get something more than just those teasing featherlight touches that the ghost was so fond of, but the generous load of gil that the ghost—that _Rufus_ had shelled out probably ensured his silence. He had a mark on his neck to show for his pains, and the ghost had rather more, but he hadn't gotten what he wanted, damnit, and the moment they were through the door...

They made as far as the couch, and he grinned in triumph as he shoved Rufus over and straddled him. White suit against the elegant black leather of the couch. Perfect.

"You know, for a ghost, you're pretty good."

"Really," Rufus replied.

"_Really_." His fingers were working on shedding the layers, white black white black— and paused, confused, over the white of bandages enclosing that slim chest. "What…"

"Nothing of concern."

But it was of concern, because now he saw what he hadn't seen, in the gloom of the alley – the tell tale black poison lancing through veins in the back of a hand, spiraling in from the outer reaches to explode in a curling, blackened patch in the center.

"Geostigma."

Rufus was still beneath him, expressionless.

"_Geostigma,_" and his voice cracked on the word. "By all the damned Ancients, why _that_? Why _you_?"

"Because." And there was no trace of emotion in that word. Simple acceptance. Simple statement of fact.

"_I didn't get you back just to lose you again!_"

It was the alcohol talking, a distant part of his mind said. Because he'd never, ever have said something like that when he was sober. But this wasn't real, was it? This was some stupid, extended nightmare…

But the nightmare was speaking again, its voice too painfully _real_ to be anything but…

"Someone once told me not to thinking about the future. Not to speculate about death. Or failure." Rufus' voice was mirror smooth. Fingers reached up to cradle his face – and from this angle, he couldn't see the damage wrought by the Geostigma. "Someone also told me that I needed to relax." A soft chuckle. "And he had an interesting way of going about it."

Damn, but the brat had charisma. And an annoying way of turning one's words back on oneself. But Reno found himself grinning giddily anyway, caught up in the surrealism of everything, and he could hardly refuse an invitation like that, could he?

"I could do a repeat performance," he drawled. "If you ask nicely enough."

"I was thinking of going about it rather differently, actually."

He raised an eyebrow from where he was perched atop Rufus' chest, shifting his hips in a deliberate gesture. "Not gonna happen, kiddo."

Rufus raised an eyebrow. "_Really_."

He'd forgotten how slippery polished leather could be. They were suddenly on the floor in a jumble of limbs, and before he could untangle himself, there was—

_There was a massive fuckin' flash of light as his train of thought derailed spectacularly._

By the time his senses crawled back, they were on the floor, and Rufus… Rufus…

_Tongue sweeping down his length, devouring him to the hilt, kiss of cold air at the sudden withdrawal, only to fade to sudden warmth again, and he'd just gone _totally _boneless, and…_

"Shit, Chief. You fight unfair," he managed to gasp.

Rufus' face loomed over his, a grin flashing across his features like lightning. "I just fight with my brains, Reno."

He groaned, and not all of it was in response to Rufus' words. "Shut up. You win. Happy?"

"Not quite. Not _yet_."

The kid was definitely real, Reno figured, even as he found himself with thighs locked around Rufus' hips, fingers clawing for grip on the carpet, heart and breath pounding in sync with Rufus' rhythm. No ghost felt this warm. No nightmare made him feel this good.

And no, not quite a kid. Somewhere and somehow he'd grown up, had taken over his damn philosophy and used it against him, had grown into the Presidency that he'd inherited too early…

_Rufus' fingers slipping through his hair, nudging the restraining rubber band free, tangling in the strands. Smiling as he brushed his lips over his collarbone…_

"So Chief, whatcha gonna do now that you're back from the dead?"

"Rebuild the Company, of course. Fall back to Midgar. Give them Hell." That smirk again. "The usual."

And there was nothing he could do but grin in response to that. 

White and black. And innocuously transparent. That was his Brat all over.

* * *

Beta release: 0134 hours November 17 2005

Final release: 1654 hours November 17 2005

Final word count: 4,147

Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Advent Children and their associated characters are property of Square-Soft/Enix.


End file.
